A need exists for a rollable, repositionable tool that prevents harm to humans in a facility which has electrical equipment that needs replacing and is susceptible to arcing during testing, maintenance or switching out of equipment on a piece by piece basis.
A need exists for a tool that can be remotely operated by a human and used for performing maintenance or switching out of equipment such as in a circuit breaker room on a piece by piece basis without shutting down power to the entire facility. A need not to shut down a hospital is particularly important for hospitals, but also has an impact on other facilities, such as hotels which have 24 hour, 7 day a week occupation by at least one resident.
It is common for a large facility, such as a hospital or a hotel, to have to shut down all power in the facility for 1 and ½ hours to replace circuit breakers and do other manual electrical maintenance in a switching room. Typically, a hotel has to shut off power, typically between 3:00 am and 4:30 am at least once a year to replace used or worn equipment. A hotel often has pilots staying with them, and these customers, who typically need to be up at 4:00 am, will not stay at the hotel that night, causing a loss of revenue. In a time of recession, loss of customers is to be avoided, and a need has existed for a device to replace this equipment without shutting down the facility.
More importantly, hospitals that need to perform the same shut down and prevent arcing in their switch rooms, do not desire a total shut down even for 1 hour. A hospital prefers to stay “on line,” that is, fully powered, otherwise it needs to provide back up power to its emergency room, life support facilities, and intensive care units, where patients are on breathing machines. The time of shut down, scheduling, and costs involved are large, and if something goes wrong it can mean loss of a patient's life.
If no shut down is performed, and the equipment is worked on by hand, the switching room can generate “arcs” of electricity that can cause first and second degree burns to an operator manually swapping out or otherwise working on the equipment.
A need has existed for a tool that can be operated remotely by a human that is low cost and prevents the shut down of a facility to swap out circuit breakers or similar “electric arc” producing equipment.
The present embodiments meet these needs.
The present embodiments are detailed below with reference to the listed Figures.